


This Possibility of You

by thewicked



Category: IT (2017), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Friends to Lovers, Getting Together, Growing Up, M/M, just trying to make it through high school
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-10
Updated: 2018-03-12
Packaged: 2019-03-16 08:36:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 18,309
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13632666
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thewicked/pseuds/thewicked
Summary: For as long as Eddie Kaspbrack can remember, Richie Tozier has been nothing more than an annoyance to endure. At 17, all Eddie can think about is going to college and getting the hell out of Derry. Little does he know just how much everything can change in the course of a year.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Note: Some minor sexual contact between teenagers who are between the ages of 18 and 17. The 17 year old is nearly 18, too, though, so I thought the Underage warning would be a little extreme. Everything is very consensual, and they don't even go that far because they're NERDS.

_Derry, Maine, Summer 1993_

 

Every now and then, Eddie Kaspbrack finds himself forgetting that he and his friends had once successfully fought off a clown-shaped demonic spirit and lived to finish middle school. The realization hits him at the weirdest times, like when he’s brushing his teeth, or when he’s sitting in the middle of Pre-Calculus. Sometimes, it’s the movement of a shadow in the corner of his eye, or the sound of his mother moving around downstairs.

Yet at 17, four years after the fact, he can’t believe how _normal_ everything still manages to feel. Or, at least, how un- _abnormal_ everything seems. Life went on – puberty struck in earnest, high school began, and the Losers only continued to grow older. It’s almost as if the cycle had never announced itself, as if the murders of Georgie, that girl, those boys, and who knows who else hadn’t ever happened. Sure, Bill’s family is finally uprooting themselves from the tragedy of Georgie’s death, and Bev had gone away, escaped her father and the vicious ether that soaks through Derry like poison, but when Eddie’s fending off Richie’s attempts to pull him into a one-armed hug in the hallway of Derry High School, yelling at him, calling him “Trashmouth” and “Asshole,” those memories feel very, very far away.

“Let go of me!”

Richie’s laughing, his grip on Eddie’s shoulders only tightening as his other hand reaches up to ruffle his hair. “I can’t, Eds! You’re so cute, I think my body has taken over! I’m on auto-pilot right now!” He drops into a robotic-sounding Voice, “Can’t – stop – Eddie – Spaghetti – too – cute.”

“How many times do I have to tell you to stop calling me that!” Finally, he manages to duck away from Richie’s arm. He’s laughing, his heart is racing, and he can tell by the heat of his face that his cheeks are flushed with irritation.

Richie looks at him, lips twisted into something stupidly, ridiculously fond. Eddie wants to smack it off of his face. “About a hundred thousand more, I’d say.”

Eddie groans. Then he’s opening his locker, which is what he’d been _trying_ to do when Richie had pounced on him. _Three times to the right, stop, left twice, stop, right once more – there we go._ Inside are the remnants of what had been an immaculate arrangement of textbooks, binders, the occasional empty lunch box, and a single photo taped on the inside of the door, of Marky Mark, torn out of some magazine, with Han Solo’s head pasted over his face. (Richie had taped it there one day, with no explanation, and despite Eddie’s protests. For whatever reason, though, Eddie had never felt a need to  take it down. At some point, he stopped noticing it altogether.) The textbooks had been turned back in three days ago, and Eddie’s shoving the binders into his backpack, cleaning out for whichever Junior this locker gets assigned to next year. He pauses to consider Richie’s Frankenstein creation. Then he’s ripping it off the door, and slipping it into one of his smaller pockets.

“So Big Bill’s skipping town this summer, huh?” Richie’s leaning against the next-door locker, arms crossed, eyes trained on Eddie through the thick glass of his spectacles.

“I don’t know why you’re phrasing it like a question,” Eddie says. “We’ve known for, like, a month now.”

“Look, I’m just trying to start up some conversation.”

“He’s not even leaving until the end of July.”

A voice stops them.

“Hey.”

It’s Rebecca Lehrman, a girl Eddie’s shared classes with, but never spoken to. Not one of the most popular kids at Derry High, but definitely higher up on the social ladder than either Eddie or Richie. What was she doing looking at them, let alone _talking_ to them?

“When do you want to start?” she asks Richie. Her arms are crossed, and she’s frowning a little, as if speaking to them is enough to cause some kind of mild pain.

Richie leans a hand against the lockers, trying (Eddie thinks) to look cool. Instead, he looks stiff and awkward. “Whenever you want…” Eddie can tell he’d meant to say “Babe” afterwards, but had decided against it, and now Rebecca’s looking at him like she can see the loose screws rattling around his head.

“I’ll call you, then,” she says. “We can figure out details later.” And then she leaves.

“Looking forward to it!” Richie calls after her.

Eddie squints at him. “What was that about?”

“Oh, nothing,” Richie says breezily, with a wave of his hand, his composure suddenly, miraculously restored. “She just asked me to tutor her for the SAT over the summer.”

“Why’d she ask _you_?”

“Uh, okay, first of all, I don’t really appreciate that _tone_ ,” Richie says. “Second of all, I don’t know if you’ve noticed or not, but I make straight A’s. Good ol’ Becs is gonna make a solid B- in Algebra, and she wants to get into a good school further down on the coast.”

Eddie shuts his locker. “So she just asked you, unprompted?”

“Well…” They start down the hall together, Eddie’s small form a compliment to Richie’s tall, gangly mess of limbs. “I might have interrupted her in the middle of complaining about it to her friends.”

Eddie snorts. “Smooth.”

“We’ll see who’s _smooth_ when I’ve made out with her a couple of times before the summer’s over.”

Eddie wrinkles his nose. “Don’t be gross.”

Richie laughs, and reaches over to ruffle Eddie’s hair again. “You’re so cute when you act grossed out by normal things.”

“Stop saying I’m cute!”

“You only get cuter, the angrier you get!”

 

After that, Eddie can’t get the image of Richie and Rebecca Lehrman making out on top of a stack of SAT practice workbooks out of his head. Richie, with his big glasses, his messy, overgrown hair, and his baggy, oversized shirts, and Rebecca, who has nice, long, pretty hair, and dresses like Rachel from _Friends_ . It feels mismatched, and Eddie really doesn’t care _what_ Richie decides to do in his spare time, but the idea of them together just feels like mixing Nirvana with the New Kids on the Block. Or mixing Screech from _Saved by the Bell_ and D.J. Tanner from _Full House_. Just… weird… and wrong.

It’s not that Richie and a girl is a totally outrageous thing to think of. After all, he’s always making bold claims about all the crazy stuff he does with them. Which Eddie knows is a giant crock of shit, since he’s always with Richie, and there are never any girls to speak of within a ten-foot radius of them, ever.

But it’s not that Eddie minds. There hasn’t been a girl in Derry since Bev who made Eddie feel anywhere close to that kind of giddiness someone’s supposed to feel when they have a crush on someone else. He tells the other Losers that Derry simply doesn’t have any girls he’d be interested in, and for the most part, he believes that. It’s only every now and then that the idea crosses his mind that his crush on Bev might be the only crush he’ll ever have on a girl – but, just like the memories of what happened four years ago, those thoughts are quickly swept aside, under the proverbial rug.

Mostly, he blames puberty for the fact that, unlike his friends, he doesn’t seem to share any of the fervor they have for the opposite sex.

“That’s bullshit, Eddie,” Stan said the first time Eddie brought his hypothesis up.

“Have you ever heard of Klinefelter syndrome?” Eddie asked. After his mother had seen a special about it on TV, Eddie had spent an unhealthy amount of time in the library reading about it. “Guys who have it don’t develop as much hair or muscle as other guys! And they have weaker bones, and they’re smaller, and – and they have decreased sexual interest! A decreased libido!”

“I think my mom saw that same special on TV,” Richie said. “They have micropenises, too, don’t they?” His face lit up. “Oh, my God, Eds, do _you_ – ”

“Beep fucking beep, Rich!”

He never brought it up again, but as the rest of the boys continued to sail through puberty, Eddie still felt like the hand he’d been dealt had been completely unfair – Big Bill became even bigger (or, at least, taller), and his stutter had improved significantly; Ben lost some of his weight, and then worked out to convert the rest into muscle; Mike has only grown stronger, and smarter, and kinder; Stan outgrew some of his neuroses, and his awkward looks, as well; and Richie… well, Richie ended up even taller than Bill, had his teeth fixed, found new glasses that didn’t make him look so bug-eyed, and got a voice that sounds like it belongs on the air. Richie, like the rest of the Losers, grew into himself, as Bill’s mom liked to say every time they were over.

Eddie, on the other hand, barely grew taller than his mother. His voice didn’t drop until he was 16, and he still barely has any hair on his legs. The only thing puberty didn’t curse him with was a face full of zits; Richie had had issues with that, at least.

If girls like Rebecca Lehrman are willing to make out with him under the pretense of SAT tutoring, though, then he can’t have turned out as gross as Eddie always assumed he did.

There’s one moment, one night, where Eddie briefly wonders if he’s perhaps thinking about Richie too much. But he quickly brushes that thought aside, like swatting away a bug that’s flown too close to his face.

 

Summer, for Eddie, consists mostly of two things: a not-always-welcome over-abundance of Richie Tozier, and a renewed desperate search to find new ways of hiding from his mother.

Don’t get Eddie wrong – he loves his mom, really, he does – but ever since Placebo-gate, as Richie refers to it, he’s been careful of the psychological leash she tries to keep him on. He still takes his vitamins in the morning, and he still keeps his inhaler close by, but he’s learned to stand up for himself; he’s learned how to say “no.”

Usually, he hides from her by hanging out with the other Losers, at the Barrens, at the Aladdin, or at Bill’s house, which became the de-facto house for the Losers to gather after their experience with It. But Bill’s leaving, and there are only so many movies he can go see.

So, he gets a job.

Ironically enough, it’s at Mr. Keene’s Pharmacy. When Eddie gets the offer, part of him wonders if it’s Mr. Keene’s way of making up for all of the placebo pills Eddie’s mother made him give Eddie as a child. But it gives him an ironclad reason for leaving the house every day, he gets time away from Richie – as long as Richie doesn’t come in to harass him on the clock – and the pay is slightly above minimum wage – which Eddie hopes to start saving, for college.

“Our Eds is a working boy!” Richie crows when Eddie tells everyone the news. They’re at the Barrens, in the clubhouse they’d built as kids. As teenagers, it’s a lot more cramped, and Eddie hardly has any room to dodge Richie’s attempts to give him what are essentially affectionate noogies.

“Stop calling me that!” he says.

“You won’t have any trouble coming to my going away p-party eventually, though, right?” Bill asks.

“The place closes at five,” Eddie says, and Bill smiles and nods.

“What are you going to do,” Stan asks Richie, “With Eddie out of commission for several hours a day?”

Richie scoffs. “It’s not like we’re attached at the hip.”

Stan looks skeptical. “You’re not going to be bored out of your mind?”

Eddie thinks about Rebecca Lehrman. It’s been a few weeks since he and Richie saw her at school, and he wonders if she’s called Richie about tutoring yet. He wonders if they’ve done more than just that, too, if Richie’s proved to be as _smooth_ as he said he’d be.

He’s pulled out of that train of thought by Richie hugging him to his side, shaking him a little to get his attention. “I can keep you company when it gets slow at work, right?”

Eddie pushes him away. “No! Mr. Keene will fire me if I let you stay in there all day, probably.”

That makes the others laugh. Richie lets go of Eddie, and the boys move on to sharing news about Bev, all the way out in Oregon. Apparently, she has a boyfriend, and apparently, she’s managed to get permission to return for a visit, just before the Denbroughs leave at the end of July. Suddenly, Eddie can’t wait to have her around again, with her cigarettes tucked into her sleeves, her kind eyes, and her red hair, a spot of brightness in the general gloom that hangs over Derry. He hadn’t realized just how much he’d missed her, just how much the Losers Club changed when she went away.

“That’s too bad about the boyfriend,” Eddie says as they’re biking back. It’s approaching dinner time, and Sonia tends to get antsy when Eddie isn’t home at least a half hour before it’s time to eat. He glances at Bill. “Are you… disappointed?”

Bill shrugs. “It’s been five years. She was b-bound to get a b-boyfriend in that time.”

“Yeah, but… I know how you and Ben felt about her.”

“It’s fine, really,” Bill says. He gives Eddie a smile. “Thank you for checking, though.”

“Our Eds is the best, isn’t he?” Richie says, coming up from behind and reaching out to attempt to ruffle Eddie’s hair.

Eddie ducks away from him, swerving his bike across the road in the process. “Richie, seriously, stop – ”

“I know, I know.” Richie’s voice suddenly spikes in pitch. “‘Stop calling me that!’”

Eddie rolls his eyes.

“You both know Bev’s probably a hippie now, right?” Richie continues. “Everyone in Oregon is a hippie. She’s probably gonna bring us back some weed. She probably even has hairy armpits now – ”

“Beep b-beep, Richie,” Bill says.

Stan asks Eddie, “Have you ever witnessed him _not_ completely full of shit?”

Eddie pretends to think for a moment. “No.”

“Hey!”

Bill and Stan laugh.

They part ways at Jackson street, Bill and Stan continuing down Witcham toward their houses, and Eddie and Richie going down Jackson toward theirs. Eddie checks his watch; it’s 5:45.

“Shit,” he mutters.

“Don’t worry, Eddie Spaghetti. If your mom’s mad that you’re late for dinner, she can just blame me for it.”

Eddie glances over at Richie. “No. She already doesn’t like you enough.”

Richie shrugs. “Don’t worry about it. I can even accompany you to your door so she can physically see me being a bad influence on you.”

They stop at an intersection and look for passing cars. Eddie wants to tell Richie that his mother doesn’t _really_ hate him, that she can see how, beneath all the Trashmouth words, he only ever means well. That she knows he cares about Eddie’s safety almost as much as she does. But the words die in his mouth, because he knows that they’re not true.

“Well, let’s get it over with, then,” he says instead.

“Cheerio!”

Before they turn the corner onto Eddie’s street, Richie slows down, his face unusually thoughtful. Eddie starts to slow down, too, and eventually, they’re just straddling their bikes, stopped in the middle of Witcham street. Eddie hopes they don’t get run over by a car.

“Richie?”

“Do you…” Richie looks away, studying one of the houses across the street as he thinks. “Do you, like, actually think I’m annoying, and gross, and stuff?”

Eddie stares at him, confused. “What?”

He shifts on his bike seat. His eyes go up to the treetops above them. “Like, do you still actually like me, as a friend?”

“What?” Eddie asks again.

“Or am I just gross! I don’t know.”

 _This_ is what Richie had to stop them for? It’s 5:55! His mother is going to lock him in his room if he’s any later! “Why the hell are you asking me this?”

Richie shrugs. “No reason.” He laughs a little, but it sounds strained, for some reason. “Just, you’re always saying I’m gross and nasty, so I just wanted to check.”

“Well, no,” Eddie says. “I mean, you say gross things,” he says, scratching his wrist near his watch. “And you’ll _never_ stop calling me stupid names. But we’ve always been friends.” He gets one of his feet back onto his pedals, starting to move as he speaks. “Clearly, if I thought you were disgusting, I’d have stopped being friends with you a long time ago.”

Richie follows him down the street. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.”

Eddie rolls his eyes. It’s practically the top of the hour now. His mother’s going to kill Richie now, most likely.

 

She doesn’t kill Richie, but she does close the door behind Eddie before Richie’s even able to finish his comedic apology. Eddie has to sit through one of her rants about how “that boy” is bad news for Eddie, how Eddie should stop spending time with him and “those other kids,” how Eddie deserves better than a bunch of miscreants with loose morals. Eddie doesn’t bother to remind her that Richie and the others are the ones who biked him home when he broke his arm, or that Richie apparently worries about whether or not he’s a good friend to Eddie. He knows she’d only come back with something like, “I’m sorry, Eddie, but I just don’t _like_ that boy.”

Richie calls later that night, and Eddie has to hide in the kitchen from his mother in the living room. Unlike his friends, Mrs. Kaspbrack never allowed him to have a private line in his room. “You don’t know what kind of people might call you,” she’d said in order to justify her decision, but Eddie knew it was so he wouldn’t spend too much time talking to That Girl in Oregon or That Tozier Boy.

“I’m sorry again for making you late today,” Richie’s saying. _He_ has a private line in his room, so there’s no sound of his mother’s stories on the TV echoing behind him. He just has a haze of loud guitar buzzing in the background, instead.

“Don’t worry about it,” Eddie says. “It wasn’t _all_ your fault.”

Richie laughs. “Yeah, but I held you back asking you weird questions about me.”

“Well, I’m not gonna say they _weren’t_ weird,” Eddie says, and Richie laughs again. “But, I mean, what made you feel like you had to ask?” Something occurs to him. “Am I too mean to you?”

Richie cackles. “Eds! You’re way too cute to ever be _too mean_. Please.”

Irritation wells up like boiling water. “Shut up!”

“Eddie?” Sonia shouts from the living room. “Are you still talking to that boy?”

“No!” Eddie lies. “It’s Bill.” She nearly actually likes Bill.

“You’re lying to your mom for me?” Richie asks. “That’s pretty romantic of you, Eds.”

“Shut up.”

“You always knew how to tell me those sweet nothings.”

“I should probably go,” Eddie says.

“Goodnight, Eddie Spaghetti,” Richie says. “Sleep tight. Don’t let the bed bugs bite.”

A shiver a horror goes down Eddie’s spine. “Please don’t say that.”

Richie laughs. “Goodnight, Eddie.”

“Goodnight.”

When he hangs up, he’s wearing an inexplicable smile that he quickly shakes off his face.

 

Bev gets into town while Eddie’s at work, and he spends his time in between sales transactions alternating between studying for his SATs and anxiously watching the clock. Jason Whitcomb, the assistant pharmacist, tells him to stop being so antsy at one point, and Eddie just says, “I can’t help it. My best friend is moving away.” Which isn’t a lie.

About half an hour before he gets to leave, a gaggle of girls comes tumbling through the door in a whirlwind of giggles and Elizabeth Arden’s _Sunflowers_ perfume. They’re in Eddie’s class, but he’s never spoken with them before. One of them is named Stormy, he thinks.

He ducks his head as they cluster in one of the aisles; he hopes they won’t buy anything and then recognize him as he rings them up.

A few snippets of their conversation float over to him:

“ – Rebecca said – ”

“ – What? _Him_?”

“ – no way, she totally said – ”

“ – Did you _see_ what he – ”

Eddie focuses on the word problem in his SAT workbook.

_Although he was a(n) … when it came to dating, Richard knew to be punctual to his date._

“Fuck,” Eddie mutters.

The bell over the door jingles, and Eddie looks up to see, with a brief rush of relief, the girls leaving. Another customer appears at the counter to check out, and as he rings up the itch cream they’re purchasing, the bits of the girls’ conversation he’d picked up keep spinning round and round his head, a teasing chorus of giggles and gossip that has him starting to feel a little sick to his stomach. One of the girls he recognized as a friend of Rebecca’s, and he can’t think of any other Rebeccas there might be at Derry High for them to gossip about. He knows, because Richie told him, that Rebecca had sworn him to secrecy over their tutoring deal. But Eddie also remembers Richie’s admission that he’d made the tutoring offer in front of her friends. _Could_ they be talking about Richie?

The door jingles again, and for a split second, Eddie panics that the girls have returned. Instead, when he looks up, it’s Bill, Ben, Stan, and –

“Bev!”

She runs up to the counter, and Eddie runs out from behind it to let her gather him up into a hug. Rudely enough, she’s still taller than him; her hair is still tomboyishly short, too, but Eddie is pleased to see that she’s outgrown the haunted look she’d had as a child. She’s beautiful.

“Where’s Richie?” Eddie asks. He looks beyond them through the glass storefront, but he isn’t loitering outside.

They all shrug. “He got all cagey about what he was doing today,” Stan says.

Eddie glances down at the practice question again, and notices that the name in it is _Robert_ , and not _Richard_.

“Huh.”

“I almost couldn’t believe it when Bill said you were working here,” Bev says, checking out the gum selection laid out in front of Eddie.

“Do _you_ know what Richie’s up to today?” Stan asks Eddie.

“What are you guys doing here?” Eddie asks. “Picking me up for Bill’s party?”

“You know that’s not until later,” Bill says.

“We’re going to try to find alcohol for it,” Bev stage-whispers.

Eddie raises his eyebrows. “Really, now?”

“That worry you?” Bev asks, her lips curling into a teasing smile.

“No,” Eddie bluffs. “Bring it on.”

Everyone laughs at that.

“Actually, we should get going now,” Stan says, checking his watch.

“Where are you guys going?”

“Orono,” Ben says. “We thought, since it’s got the university, we’d have a better shot of getting away with it.”

“I’m sure a car full of teenagers will really convince them that one of you is over 21.”

“Well, just me, Ben, and Bill are going,” Bev says. “Stan is…”

“Bird-watching,” Stan says, and he endures Eddie’s short burst of laughter like a sentenced criminal enduring his punishment. “I never have time anymore, between school, and work, and hanging out with you guys. I’m taking time for myself.”

“Well, have fun,” Eddie says.

“We’ll see you tonight,” Bev says.

“See what Richie’s been up to,” Stan says. “Make sure he shows up on time. We don’t want a repeat of New Year’s.”

“What happened on New Year’s?” Bev asks.

“We’ll tell you in the car,” Bill says.

They leave, and Eddie has fifteen minutes left of his shift. Another batch of customers comes in, and Eddie finds himself fidgeting behind the counter, willing them to either buy something or leave. They don’t do either, and Eddie ends up leaving ten minutes later than he should have, and that’s because his replacement comes rolling in late. But Eddie doesn’t have time to chew him out for his tardiness – he has to see what Richie’s doing.

Because he doesn’t have a car, Eddie has to bike to and from work. It’s twenty minutes to Richie’s house from the pharmacy, and by the time Eddie’s dropping his bike at the curb and marching up the path to Richie’s front door, he’s got a fine sheen of sweat soaking into his hair and dripping down the sides of his face. He tells himself it’s all just from the exertion from riding his bike. Nothing else.

With a careful breath, he knocks on the door.

He’s standing there for what feels like ten minutes, but what is probably really only one or two, before he hears Richie’s muffled voice shouting, “Be right there!” from somewhere within the house. Then, moments later, the door opens, and Richie’s there, out of breath, looking at Eddie like he’s the police, come to break up a party. “Eds!”

“Bev got back today,” Eddie says.

“Hey.”

Rebecca Lehrman appears at Richie’s shoulder, and she pauses when she sees Eddie, giving him a quick once-over that leaves him feeling suddenly, overwhelmingly inadequate. How, he doesn’t really know.

“Hi, Rebecca,” he says.

She ignores him and pats Richie on the shoulder. “Thanks for helping me out.”

Richie leans against the door, a big, stupid, shit-eating grin on his face. “No problem-o. Just remember what we talked about, and you should be good.”

She smiles, says, “Sure thing,” and punctuates it with a wink. Eddie watches, flabbergasted.

Then she’s leaving, brushing past Eddie and heading over to a car parked at the edge of the street. Eddie turns to Richie. “What the fuck?”

Richie closes the door behind him, and leans back against it, his arms crossed. “I told you I could be smooth, didn’t I?”

“What – you – you and her – ”

Richie shrugs. Eddie wants to smack the smug look right off his face. “A gentleman doesn’t kiss and tell.” Then he _winks._

“What!” Eddie’s in shock, feeling like Luke Skywalker when Darth Vader tells him he’s his father – or maybe something not quite so dramatic, but he’s working on limited brain power right now. “You’re supposed to be _tutoring_ her, not – not – you’ve never even – since when have you even liked _her_?”

“Eds, it’s not about whether or not I _like_ her – ”

“Are you so slimy that you’d use some test as a pretense for getting some girl to make out with you?” Eddie asks. “Are you really so desperate for someone to kiss you that you have to trap her in your room with you for a few hours? That’s - that’s psychotic! That’s so creepy!”

“Eddie – ”

“And everyone knows Rebecca Lehrman is _way_ out of your league! Even _I_ know that!”

“What the – since when do you care about _that_?”

“You’re unbelievable.” Eddie throws up his arms, turns around to take a step back towards the street, and turns around again to stare at Richie in disbelief. “Unbelievable!”

“What the fuck is wrong with making out with Rebecca Lehrman?”

“Nothing!” Eddie can hear his voice verging on the hysterical. “It’s just – ”

“Eds – ”

“When will you fucking _stop_ with that name!” Eddie whirls around and storms back to his bike, which looks pathetic lying on its side, compared to the Camry Rebecca had driven off with.

“Eddie, what the fuck!”

“I’ll see you at the party tonight,” Eddie yells over his shoulder. He doesn’t want to look at Richie right now. He has tears stinging in his eyes, and he doesn’t even know why. What the _fuck_. “Stan said not to be late again, like you were at New Year’s.”

“Eddie!”

He’s taking off from the curb, pelting towards his house with all the power his legs can muster. He can hear Richie shouting after him, but he ignores him, like he’s also desperately trying to ignore the weird, stiff pain in his chest that’s threatening to spread to his lungs, too.

 

With the others returning from their trek to Orono and Richie out of the question, Eddie calls Stan for a ride to the Barrens.

“What’s wrong with Richie?” Stan asks.

“Nothing,” Eddie snaps. “I just don’t want to sit in that Taco Bell-smelling Trash-mobile for any amount of time more than I have to.”

Stan pulls up to Eddie’s house fifteen minutes later, and after kissing his mother goodbye and promising to be home by eleven (“No, Eddie, I want you back by _ten_ .” “Bill is _leaving_ , Ma!” “Fine, ten-thirty.” “ _Ma_!”), Eddie plunks himself into the passenger seat.

Stan eyes him for a few seconds. “What the fuck happened to you since I saw you, like, four hours ago?” he asks.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Eddie says. “It’s stupid.”

“If you say so.” Stan puts the car into drive, and they start moving.

 

“So,” Mike says. “Did you get it?”

Ben, Bev, and Bill share a secret smile. Ben shrugs off his backpack and places it on the floor in front of him. “Check this out.” Then he’s pulling out one, two, three six packs of beers, and a tall bottle full of clear liquid, the word _VODKA_ plastered over the front of it.

“How the hell did you fit all of that in there?” Richie asks.

“What are we supposed to drink that vodka with?” Stan asks.

Bev reveals a bottle of Sunny D she’d been holding behind her back.

“So,” Richie says, grabbing one of the six packs and brandishing it, a circus ringleader introducing a new act. “Who’s first?”

“I’ll take one,” Eddie says, and as soon as the words are out of his mouth, six heads are all simultaneously swiveling in his direction.

“ _Really_?”

Richie’s just staring at Eddie, so Eddie grabs the six pack out of his hand and rips one of the cans off. “Who else wants one?”

Mike volunteers, and Eddie tosses the pack over to him before opening his beer with a satisfying pop. He takes a swig, and even though it tastes like garbage – moldy dishwater, if you want him to be more precise – he swallows it down.

 

It’s really not much of a party. They’re at the Barrens, and the seven of them are squeezed into the clubhouse. It had been bad before, with about half of them in there, but now, Eddie feels like he’s inside the trash compactor his mother had had installed last winter. He’d made a conscious effort to avoid sitting next to Richie, so now he’s squished between Bill and Mike, with Bev and Stan on either side of them. Unfortunately, that left Richie with a spot almost directly across from Eddie, and he keeps trying to meet Eddie’s eyes, a whole slew of questions warring across his face. Eddie does his best to look anywhere else.

Ben had brought a boom box with him, and they’re playing all the cassette tapes on hand between the seven of them – Sonic Youth and Beastie Boys, from Richie’s car; Michael Jackson from Ben’s; Madonna, TLC, and Arrested Development from Bev’s Walkman; and, from Stan, Tchaikovsky.

“Oh, my God,” Richie says when a symphony kicks into gear. “ _Stanley_.”

“What?” Stan snaps. “I like _culture_.”

“Yeah, Richie,” Eddie says. “Leave Stanley alone.”

“Oh, you’re talking to me, suddenly?” Richie says, his eyes challenging Eddie to bite back.

Eddie simply looks away.

 

“What’s going on with Richie?” Bill asks later. He and Eddie are sitting off to the side as the rest of the Losers watch Richie perform some cheap magic tricks.

“Nothing,” Eddie says, but he’s slouched in his chair, and his eyes won’t leave Richie, who’s in the middle of asking Bev if _this_ is her card, his smile big, electric, and stupid.

Bill follows his gaze. “Are you sure?”

“Why do you care?”

“Because you guys are my b-best friends, and it sucks to see you fighting. Esp-pecially at my going-away party.”

That makes Eddie look down at his lap. Guilt, hot and sour, starts to bubble in his stomach. He’s ruining Bill’s going away party with his shitty pettiness.

“I’m sorry,” he says. He suddenly wants to cry.

“No, it’s ok-kuh-kuh-kay.”

“No, it’s not!” Suddenly, he wants to grab hold of Bill and never, ever let him go. He can hide him in his room if he has to, or – or he could stay in the guest room, which never gets used except when one of Eddie’s fat aunts visits, which is basically never. He could stay in Derry, keep going to Derry High, and he could stay with Eddie, who needs him to be his Jiminy Cricket, to take care of him, like he always has. Bill’s his _best friend_ , his oldest friend, their leader, the bigger brother Eddie had always wanted. Bill never stopped looking out for Eddie; he even saved his life _multiple_ times, and he can read Eddie better than anyone – _Except maybe Richie_ , he thinks bitterly. But Bill… Bill is his hero.

And suddenly, Eddie realizes just how much he _loves_ Bill, and always has. And seeing him about to leave Derry, to leave _Eddie_ – it makes Eddie’s heart feel like it’s cracking in two.

Before he knows what’s happening, there are tears in his eyes, spilling onto his cheeks. “Don’t go,” he says. “Why do you have to go?”

“Don’t cry, Eddie, I’ll start crying, too – ”

“You know you always felt like my brother, Bill, taking care of me,” Eddie says. “I never thanked you for everything you’ve done for me.”

“Eddie…”

A sharp flash breaks them out of their tearful farewell, and the two of them jump like startled animals.

“Richie!” Eddie cries, furiously rubbing the tears out of his eyes.

“I’m sorry! You guys were just so cute, crying and hugging – ”

“You didn’t have to _photograph_ it – ” Eddie stands up, but the sudden movement causes the room to spin. He plops back down into his chair and settles for just glaring at Richie. “Bill’s _leaving_ tomorrow!”

“How much beer has he had?” Richie asks Bill.

Bill stares at him, blue eyes wide and confused. “I – I don’t know.”

“I’m _fine_ , Richie,” Eddie says. “What, are you suddenly my mother?” That makes him start laughing.

“ _Shit_.” Richie checks his watch, and then he’s hurrying to pick Eddie up from his chair. “We gotta get you home.”

“Fuck off!”

Eddie rips his arm from Richie’s grip, only to launch himself onto the camping chair, causing it to buckle beneath his weight. Bill shoots out an arm to catch him, but that only causes him to swing towards him, and he still lands painfully on top of the collapsed chair.

“Eddie!”

Richie’s grabbing at him now, and Eddie fights him off. “Let go. I can get up myself,” he insists.

The entire clubhouse is silent now as Eddie stares Richie down.

“Fine,” Richie says. “But it’s quarter to eleven, and if your mom’s upset that you’re home late, don’t blame it on me this time.”

And he leaves.

Eddie stares after him, not quite able to process what’s just happened.

“Eddie,” Stan says, taking one of his arms and helping him up. “You should go home.”

“But – Bill – ”

“Bill’s finishing with packing tomorrow. The Denbroughs don’t leave until the morning _after_ tomorrow.”

Eddie frowns. “Seriously?”

“Go catch up to Richie before he leaves without you,” Stan says.

“What? Why?”

He gives Eddie a nudge towards the door. “Because I don’t want you vomiting in my car.”

“I won’t – ”

He nudges Eddie again. “Come on.”

 

As it turns out, Richie’s waiting for him by his car, a lit cigarette held between his fingers. Eddie stops a few yards away, a little bit behind Ben’s car. He’s still dizzy, but something’s holding him back from disturbing Richie. He watches him take a drag of his cigarette, the smoke he exhales flying up to join the haze that’s floating up in the canopy of trees above them. His foot jitters, and Eddie’s starting to think that there’s something about the way the moonlight illuminates him against the dark tree trunks when he spots him in the shadows. “Eds?”

Eddie knows he sounds sheepish when he says, “Hi.”

“Are you stuck, or something? Why are you lurking behind Ben’s car?”

Eddie starts to move. “No, I’m okay.”

Then his foot catches on a piece of a fallen branch, and he’s on the ground, a sharp pain hissing at his knee. “Fuck!”

“Eddie!”

Richie’s next to him, helping him into a sitting position, and his hands are all over him, checking him to make sure he’s okay. Dimly, Eddie thinks of the many times he’d fallen as a child, and his mother examining him, smothering him with her crying and her worrying – but this feels different. Richie’s hands are gentle, not clammy, and they’re touching him only where he needs to be touched. The scent of his cigarette fills Eddie’s nose, but for once, it’s not disgusting and overwhelming. Eddie starts to lean into his touch, but then his stomach gurgles, and he starts to groan.

“God, you’re a mess,” Richie mutters, and Eddie can’t help himself; he laughs.

Richie starts to laugh, too. “What?” he says.

“Nothing,” Eddie says. “Can you please help me up? I don’t think I can make it by myself.”

“Jaysus, how much did you have to drink, Eddie my boy?”

Eddie shrugs as Richie tries getting an arm around him and guiding him into a standing position. Suddenly, having Richie so close is making Eddie nervous. “I don’t know,” he says. His mouth is dry. “A few.”

“A few?” They’re standing now, and one of Richie’s hands is on Eddie’s waist to steady him, and it burns through his shirt, searing his skin and making his heart pound.

“I don’t know,” Eddie says again.

It’s not until Richie’s deposited Eddie into the front passenger seat that Eddie says, “Wait… wait – you can’t drive us home!”

Richie chuckles, but Eddie can tell he’s reaching the end of his patience when he says, “And why is that?”

“You’ve been drinking, too!”

Richie lets out another loose, humorless laugh. “Actually, contrary to popular belief, watching your parents drink as much as mine do kinda puts you off from drinking to excess.”

Eddie stares at him. “You didn’t drink _at all_?”

Richie shrugs. “What? Is that really so surprising?”

Eddie’s gaping at him, and, distantly, he thinks that the moonlight really accentuates the halo of curls making a mess around Richie’s head. “No,” he eventually says. “I guess not.”

Richie flashes him a smile before standing to close the door. “Come on. Let’s get you home.”

 

They’re quiet all the way to Eddie’s house. Richie rolls the windows down, and Eddie lets the cool night air wash over him, run its fingers through his hair, and sober him up a little. A Smashing Pumpkins cassette is playing, the heavy guitars and Billy Corgan’s voice resonating through Eddie like something divine.

It’s not until they pull up in front of Eddie’s house that Eddie finally checks the time: 11:25. _Fuck._

“How are you doing?” Richie asks.

Eddie feels a little sick with dread. “I’m okay.”

“Do you want help getting out?”

Eddie leans his head against the door. “Yeah.”

Richie wrestles him out of his car, and Eddie spills out of it, nearly knocking Richie over. Richie holds onto him, and for a split second, Eddie’s convinced he’s going to kiss him.

“Let’s get you inside.”

When they’re through the front door, Eddie can’t believe his dumb luck – his mother is in the living room, but her snores are audible over the dialogue and canned laughter coming out of the TV. Eddie lets out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding.

“I can’t believe it, Eds,” Richie whispers, “You’re so cute even when you’re sneaking in past curfew.”

“Shut up,” Eddie whispers back, but he can’t help the surge of pleasure that that comment sends through him.

They hurry up the stairs – or, at least, they _try_ to hurry, because Eddie’s still struggling with coordinating his body, and Richie essentially has to drag him up the stairs.

“Why d’you keep calling me _cute_ all the time?” Eddie asks once they’re safe on the landing.

Richie doesn’t hesitate with his response. “Because you are.”

“Well… stop it.”

“Why?”

“Because I can’t handle the way it makes me feel.”

Richie stops, and the ground spins under Eddie’s feet. He can hear him breathing, _in_ , _out_ , _in_. Then they start moving again.

“Wotchit,” a Voice says when they reach Eddie’s room. “Steady on, lad.”

Eddie groans. “You’re not _British_ , Richie.”

He flops down onto his bed, nearly bringing Richie down with him. Eddie laughs, more than a little crazy, Rebecca Lehrman suddenly coming to mind.

“ _God_ , for someone so _small_ , you sure weigh a lot, Eds.”

“I get it from my mother,” Eddie mumbles. He hears Richie trying to smother his laughter.

Then he’s gone, standing up, probably adjusting his glasses. Eddie can hear him breathing through his mouth.

“Are you leaving?” he asks.

A beat goes by, and then, “Why? You want me to?”

Eddie rolls onto his side. “Bed’s not big enough.”

A snort. “Fine.”

Eddie smiles. He hopes Richie can’t see it. “Thank you, Richie.”

A blanket falls over him, and it gets pulled up to his neck, tucked in around him. “Get some sleep now.”

“Sleep on my floor.”

There’s a moment where Eddie doesn’t hear anything, and for a split second, Eddie worries that Richie had simply left without saying anything. But then he hears blankets rustling behind him, and Richie settling down. “’Night, Eddie Spaghetti.”

He’s too tired to say anything about the stupid name. Instead, he gives a heavy sigh that turns into something like a yawn. “Goodnight.”

 

When Eddie wakes up, Richie is gone, and his knee is throbbing. It’s half past nine, and the nest of blankets Richie had slept in looks completely cold. Eddie tries not to feel disappointed as he rubs the sleep-crust out of his eyes. Richie’s gone, but there’s a note by one of Eddie’s windows, taped to the wall and carrying Richie’s characteristic chicken scratch writing.

_Fix your window, Eds – I can’t sneak out the other one – harder to get down from that part of the roof._

_Guess I’ll have to kiss your mom goodbye downstairs!_

_Love,_

_Richie_

Eddie’s throat tightens with panic, visions of Richie appearing to his mother like an apparition in the kitchen clogging his head; he can just see Richie frightening her and causing her to ground Eddie, because if Richie somehow managed to get into the house, surely Eddie needs to be kept _in_ the house, to keep him out of Richie’s malevolent orbit.

He reads Richie’s note again and tries the window in question, finding that it is, indeed, jammed. He goes to the other one on the next wall, opens it, and sticks his head outside. Looking around, he can see Richie’s point about trying to get down from here. Eddie’s room is at the front of the house, with one window – the one that’s jammed – looking out over the porch roof, and another dormer window looking out over the rest of the house. While there’s a section of roof stretching out beneath this window, there’s nothing underneath that a crazy house-climber could hold onto to try to get down safely. Just around the corner, beneath the stuck window, is the roof that hangs over the porch, with its support posts and railing offering many – _still dangerous!_ Eddie thinks – potential footholds.

He ducks his head back inside, and as he emerges from his room, the thoughts of Richie disturbing his mother rush back into his head. A nest of snake-like nerves start to move around in his stomach again.

It’s quiet when he gets downstairs, though, and his mother is sitting in the kitchen, peacefully eating her Weight Watchers-inspired breakfast when he peeks around the corner.

_Phew._

He takes care of his knee in the bathroom. How he managed to fall asleep and stay asleep with it bleeding, Eddie doesn’t know; he’ll have to clean his bedding today, if he wants to keep his mother from worrying too much about it.

And yet, as soon as he walks into the kitchen, his mother says, “What happened to your knee, Eddie? Are you okay?”

“It’s just a scrape, Ma,” Eddie says. He tries to brush past her to get to the pantry, but she holds him back, turning him towards her to examine him.

“How did this happen? I thought you were just with your friends last night.”

“I _was_ ,” Eddie says. “I just tripped on my way home. I’ve cleaned it up and everything.”

She looks at him, studies his face. He fidgets, suddenly feeling seven years old again. “You’re not lying to me, are you, Eddie?”

“Ma, of course not.”

“Okay.”

She lets him go, and he can breathe easy again.

 

Within the next two days, Bill moves to Portland, Maine, and Bev goes back to Portland, Oregon. Eddie continues to work at the pharmacy, and Richie (apparently) continues to tutor Rebecca for the SAT. They don’t see much of each other for the next few weeks, even as Eddie himself gets ready to take the SAT in the middle of August. The prospect of applying to college is slowly coming to occupy the bulk of Eddie’s anxiety, but he tries to stay cool, because psyching himself out will do nothing but hurt his chances, probably.

He studies with Stan on his lunch breaks. Stan works at the stationary shop a block down from the pharmacy, so they usually meet in the middle, by the Paul Bunyan statue. Sometimes, Richie shows up, but ever since Eddie blew up at him over Rebecca, he’s been conspicuously absent.

“Everything okay with you two?” Stan asks.

“I don’t know,” Eddie says. “Every time I see him, he seems to be pretty pleased with himself.”

“You don’t think that’s all an act?”

Eddie stops with his egg salad sandwich halfway to his mouth. “An act?”

Stan levels a look at Eddie. “Look, I don’t know what you guys fought over, but there’s no way Richie’s pleased with himself if the two of you aren’t talking to each other. To be honest, I can’t believe he’s lasted this long without regularly hanging out with you. Normally he’s totally whipped.”

Eddie scoffs. “ _Richie’s_ whipped? What, by me?”

Stan raises an eyebrow. “You never noticed?”

“No…”

Stan sighs and puts his sandwich down. “You’re telling me that you never noticed how Richie will literally drop whatever it is he’s doing to do something for or with you? He left Bill’s party early to take you home before your curfew when he didn’t have to.” When Eddie still only stares at him, he says, “He’s literally said, ‘I’d do anything for you,’ to you, Eddie.”

“He – he’s just my best friend. Bill would do anything for you.”

Stan shrugs. “I’m not so sure.”

“What?”

“I mean, not literally _anything_.”

“Neither would Richie!”

“Well.” Stan chews some of his sandwich, looking as if he hasn’t just said something completely insane. “I don’t know what to tell you, then.”

Eddie spends a moment completely speechless before Stan wipes his hands on a napkin and grabs his study workbook. “Should we brush up on grammar?”

 

Richie, _whipped_ ? By _Eddie_? That kind of stuff only applies to boyfriends and girlfriends, not weird best friends who make jokes about Eddie’s mother and who call Eddie stupid things like “Spaghetti.”  

Richie isn’t even gay. Eddie isn’t – well, _probably_ isn’t gay, either. Even if Eddie _was_ gay, he wouldn’t be interested in someone like Richie – with his awful Voices, his dirty jokes, the fact that he likes Mountain Dew, and his weird, tall, gangly body? Richie _Trashmouth_ Tozier? No – no, Eddie would definitely have higher standards as a gay man.

Eddie himself isn’t even much of a catch – small, scrawny, nearly asthmatic, and with a load of mother-related issues even twenty hours of therapy a week probably couldn’t fix. He’s never known of anyone having a crush on him at school, but he can’t really cite his membership in the Loser’s Club as an excuse anymore – Ben’s had two girlfriends already, and Stan’s been quietly dating a girl from his Temple for a year now. And now Richie, apparently, has had relations with Rebecca Lehrman.

He and Stan never revisit the subject again during their lunch breaks, but Eddie’s confronted with it unexpectedly when he runs into Rebecca at Derry High for the SAT in the middle of August. Unfortunately, _K_ and _L_ are right next to each other in the alphabet, and Derry is a small town, so Eddie finds his seat right next to hers when he walks into the classroom-turned-testing room. The snakes are back in his stomach, writhing and slithering up into his throat.

“Hey,” she says. “How’s Richie doing?”

“I don’t know,” Eddie says. God, the universe hates him. “I haven’t seen him in a few days.”

She frowns. “What, really? Aren’t you guys, like, attached at the hip, or whatever?”

“No, we’re not.” Eddie does his best not to snap at her. “Anyway, I thought he was giving you intensive tutoring for math, or something.”

“We only got together a few times.” She studies Eddie, squints a little, and Eddie wonders what’s so confusing. “Didn’t he…?” She shakes her head. “Never mind.”

Eddie practically pounces on her. “No, what?”

“No, it’s nothing,” she says, fidgeting with her regulation No. 2 pencil. “Really.”

Eddie’s mind is reeling as Mrs. Mahaffey, the sophomore English teacher, comes in to begin administering the test. As she drones on through the instructions, Eddie can barely listen. What the hell was Rebecca going to ask? What had Richie supposedly been supposed to do as far as Eddie was concerned? Why is Rebecca so concerned about what’s going on between them? Before this summer, she’d never spoken more than a few words to Eddie and Richie, combined. Why the hell did she suddenly care what happened with them?

Eddie can’t think through almost the entire first section of the test. By the end of it, there’s no telling how poorly he’s probably done. College was always a pipe dream, anyway. Maybe Eddie can just become something simple. Like a limousine driver. You don’t need to go to college for _that._

During the group’s first ten-minute break, he finds Rebecca out in the hallway.

“So, uh, what kind of stuff did Richie tell you during your ‘tutoring’ sessions?” he asks.

“I don’t know.” She’s eating peanuts, and offers one to Eddie; he takes it out of politeness. “Why?”

“No reason.”

A smile starts to pull at her lips, like she’s suddenly figured out the answer to a puzzle. “Are you… Are you and Richie, like… a thing?”

“What!” Eddie barks out a truly awful-sounding laugh. “No!”

She looks skeptical. “Okay.”

“I – I mean – we’re not _gay_ , okay, and – and you’ve seen Richie!”

“I have,” she admits.

“He’s gross!”

She shrugs, pops another peanut into her mouth. “I don’t know. He’s got a certain charm about him.”

“What – _how_?”

Another peanut. “I don’t know! He’s just funny. And he’s looked a lot better since his dad fixed his teeth. And if he dressed better, that wouldn’t hurt, either.”

Eddie laughs again. “You’re crazy.”

“Well.” _Another_ peanut. “Just say you don’t like him that way then. It’s pretty simple.”

“What – I don’t!”

Mrs. Mahaffey sticks her head out of the classroom doorway. “Break’s over in one minute.”

Rebecca raises her eyebrows at Eddie while she’s still chewing her last peanut. “Ready for Round Two?”

Eddie’s ready to forfeit his chance on this test. There’s no fucking _way_ he’s going to be able to do well _now_.


	2. Chapter 2

_Derry, Maine, Fall 1993_

Eddie doesn’t like Richie.

There’s just – it’s just impossible, is what it is. For one thing, he’s a total weirdo, and for another, he’s a total jerk. The sheer fact that Richie calls Eddie stupid names, and uses those stupid Voices on a daily basis, and can’t go a day – no, an _hour_ – without cracking some joke about farts, or poop, or Eddie’s mother, are already more than enough reasons just _why_ , exactly, Eddie would never like Richie that way. If Eddie had enough time, he could probably come up with a hundred reasons why he’d never like Richie. He just has other, more important things to do – like try to get into a good school so he can get the hell out of Derry.

Rebecca’s voice continues to echo inside Eddie’s head well into the start of the school year – _He’s just funny. And if he dressed better, he wouldn’t look so bad. – You haven’t said you don’t actually like him that way. So._

Eddie, because the universe has, apparently, decided it still isn’t finished with him, has two classes with her this year; to make things worse, their Senior Biology teacher assigns them as lab partners. The first day of school, she asks, “How’re things with you and Richie?” though her expression asks, _Have you and Richie hooked up yet?_

Eddie doesn’t even know _how_ he’s gone from panicking over Richie somehow traumatizing Rebecca with his awful attempts at wooing, or embarrassing himself at the very least, to panicking over Richie in an entirely different way. Now, every time he sees him, he can’t help but notice some new as-yet-never-noticed detail about him that sends Eddie’s stupid heart skittering through his chest. Like the freckles over the bridge of his nose – where the _fuck_ have those been hiding all these years? Or the fact that his laugh sounds not like the cackling of the Wicked Witch of the West in _The Wizard of Oz_ , but is actually really contagious, and makes Eddie feel a little drunk?

Even if Eddie liked Richie – which he _doesn’t_ – he’d hate him now, for all the turmoil he’s been putting him through. They’ve still been weird with each other since the night Eddie got drunk on what he later found out had only been two beers – apparently, Eddie is still rather susceptible to the placebo effect. But Richie never really explained why he snuck out before Eddie woke up, and Eddie still hasn’t (really, technically) apologized for flipping out over the weird, suggestive wink Rebecca had given Richie at his house. They’ve reached an uneasy truce.

It’s weird, because Richie has, despite the awkwardness of the last few months, been behaving more or less normally – at least, to the untrained eye. He still bothers Eddie, still eats lunch with Eddie and Stan, and Ben, still shuttles Eddie to and from school in his gold beat-up Geo Metro, and he still calls Eddie by his various nicknames. But something is missing; it’s like he’s holding himself back, keeping a certain distance between the two of them, like he’s fulfilling some request Eddie had never even made.

And Eddie hates it.

He wants to talk to someone about it –Bill, or Bev, or even Stan. He really wishes he could just call Bill up in Portland and tell him everything and beg him to tell him what to do, because he always knows what to do. He wants Bill here with him, to put a brotherly arm around his shoulder and reassure him in his stuttering way that “Everything will be o-kuh-kuh-kay.” But the thought of exposing himself to someone, to admitting to someone that he may or may not possibly have an insane crush on Richie, fills Eddie with such terror that he just _can’t._ He doesn’t think he can handle that, like, _ever_.

So, instead, he throws himself into finalizing everything for his first college application. He’s applying early action with the hopes that, if he can get into his number-one choice, he won’t have to try any other schools, and he’ll be able to avoid paying too many application fees. That’s what he’d read in one of the school counselors’ binders about applying to college, at least.

So he spends a few afternoons in the public library after school, drafting and re-drafting his personal essay with nothing but increasing anxiety. He’s gone through three of the Common App’s possible prompts already, and none of them have led to anything that makes Eddie feel confident in his chances. Every word he writes, he can feel Derry tightening its hold on him, hands not unlike his mother’s gripping his ankles and whispering in his ears that they’ll never let go, no matter how hard he tries.

 _Breathe_ , he thinks. He looks down at the list of prompts included in the application packet he’d received in the mail, and reads the next one.

_Discuss an accomplishment, event, or realization that sparked a period of personal growth and a new understanding of yourself or others._

Eddie’s blood curdles.

“Spaghetti!”

“Quiet, Mr. Tozier!”

“Sorry!”

Eddie’s head whips around in his seat to see Richie miming sheepishness while Mrs. Paige, the librarian, tries to glare a hole right through his head.

“What are you doing?” he hisses when Richie reaches his table.

“Seeing what’s up.” Richie flips one of the chairs around and sits in it backwards. “Ben sold you out. Said you were here doing your college essay.”

“Great," Eddie grumbles. His fingers flex around his pen, his mind racing about the shit he could write for that essay prompt – not that any of it would get him accepted, probably.

Richie grabs the most recent incarnation of Eddie’s essay and squints at it. “So what are you writing?”

“Give that back!” Eddie makes to grab it, but Richie holds it up, out of Eddie’s reach.

“What?” Richie asks, smiling. “Is it about me?”

“No,” Eddie says, and even though he’s telling the truth, he can feel himself flushing, like he’s lying.

Richie lets the paper fall back onto the desk. “Well, it _should_ be about me.”

Mrs. Paige appears at his shoulder, her nostrils flaring dangerously. “Mr. Tozier, I’m going to have to ask you to leave, if you don’t keep your voice down.” She turns her nostrils to Eddie. “And you’ll have to leave with him, if you want to keep talking to him.”

Richie holds up his hands. “Okay, okay, Mrs. P. You’ve silenced this silver tongue for the moment.”

She leaves, but not before issuing one more warning glare in Richie’s direction. Eddie considers him. “Thanks for not getting us kicked out.”

Richie shrugs. “Now you can write your college essay about me.”

Eddie snorts. “In your dreams.”

Richie looks at him, his expression unreadable. He almost looks like he’s studying Eddie, like he’s trying to figure Eddie out. Eddie finds himself looking away from him, looking instead at his essay, now crumpled up from Richie’s manhandling.

“Well,” Richie says, suddenly standing up. Eddie watches him, confused.

“Where are you going?”

“You need to write,” Richie says. “I don’t want to distract you.”

Eddie scoffs. “Since when has that stopped you?”

“Since I know you want to get into those fancy big city schools.” Richie gives Eddie a smile, but for some reason, Eddie thinks it looks kind of sad. “You always dreamt big.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Anyway.” Richie slings his backpack over his shoulder, looking around the study area for signs of the librarian. “I should head out before I get decapitated, or something.”

Eddie rolls his eyes. “That would never happen.”

Richie salutes him with a wink. “Keep it sleazy, my friend.”

As he skips his way out of the library, Eddie sits back, a frown on his face. Weird as most of Richie’s expressions might be, “Keep it sleazy” was never really part of his vocabulary.

He returns to his essay with a beleaguered sigh. “What the fuck,” he mutters.

 

 

For Halloween, Mike invites everyone to his house for movies. Normally, it would have been Bill volunteering to host, but no one says anything about that as they pile into Mike’s living room, snacks ready, the VHS player buzzing and ready to go.

Richie plops onto the Hanlons’ sofa, his long limbs flying all over the place as he makes a gesture in Eddie’s direction. “Sit next to me, Spaghetti. I’ll let you know when the jump scares are coming so you don’t accidentally hit someone in the face again.”

“That was one time,” Eddie snaps, almost reflexively. He stays where he is on the other side of the coffee table, arms crossed, stomach uneasy as he watches the soft rise and fall of Richie’s lean belly.

Richie puts his hands behind his head. “So that’s a no?”

“It’s not a yes.”

He expects Richie to put up a fight, to say something like, “You don’t know what you’ll be missing, baby!” He expects Richie to kick the coffee table at Eddie, startle him into action, cajole him into relenting – anything except the easy nod of his head as he says, “Alright.”

Something pricks at the edges of Eddie’s awareness, angry and more than a little offended. As Richie starts to ask Mike about the drink situation they have in a Baptist household, Eddie goes to the bathroom to keep himself from doing something stupid, like sitting himself down on top of Richie to protest his weird behavior.

He stays in there for a few minutes to collect himself. “Stupid Rebecca,” he grumbles as he washes his hands. “Stupid Richie.”

By the time he emerges, some previews are playing on the TV, and everyone’s settled down. Stan and Mike have joined Richie on the sofa, and Ben’s on the floor. Eddie goes to sit next to him, thoroughly intending to make due on the rug, but when he accidentally meets Richie’s eyes over the snack-laden coffee table, he changes his mind.

“Make way,” he says. Mike and Stan complain as he steps over their feet, and Richie looks at him like he’s starting to think he’s crazy.

“What are you…”

Eddie inserts himself between Mike and Richie. Then he grabs the bowl of popcorn and settles in, perversely enjoying the way Richie suddenly doesn’t know what to do with himself.

The movie starts – it’s _Beetlejuice_. Eddie doesn’t know why Richie was talking about jump scares; he likes this movie.

And now he’s squeezed between Eddie and the arm of the couch, his hands held awkwardly in his lap, staring straight ahead at the TV screen. Eddie peeks over at Mike, who’s crossed his arms, but otherwise looks comfortable.

“Hey,” Eddie whispers to Richie. “Relax a little. It’s just me.”

Richie lets out a chuckle. “Right. Just you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

He shrugs, and for a second, Eddie thinks that’s that. But then he’s stretching his arm out over Eddie’s head, resting it on the back of the couch behind Eddie. “I don’t know. Whatever you want it to mean.”

The absence of Richie’s arm between them is surprisingly unbearable, and Eddie suddenly wishes he had just settled for the floor, instead of making such an idiotic decision. “That’s stupid. What if I want it to mean something ridiculous?”

Richie’s smiling now. “Like what?”

“Like – like – ‘Oh, it’s just Eddie, everyone knows he’s disgusting.’”

Richie laughs. “‘Everyone knows he’s disgusting?’ Eds, come on.”

“I mean – _you’re_ the disgusting one, everyone knows _that_ – ”

“ _Guys_ ,” Stan hisses. “Shut up.”

“We’re _whispering_ ,” Richie hisses back.

“Yeah, but we can all still _hear you_.”

Eddie has to hold back his laughter as Richie rolls his eyes.

“You picked the movie,” Mike points out. “You’re making us sit through this nonsense, so you better watch it.”

“Okay, okay.” Richie settles into his spot, and Eddie hates the way his entire body shifts against his own. Eddie pulls his feet up to the couch, tucking his knees against his chest, and it helps, a little bit. He never should have tried to make a statement by squeezing himself onto the couch – he doesn’t even really know _what_ statement he was trying to make.

Midway through the movie, when Betelgeuse makes his first appearance to Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis, Richie leans his head closer to Eddie and says, “Relax a little. It’s just me. And Mike.”

Eddie rolls his eyes. “I’m relaxed. This is comfortable.”

“Is my arm bothering you?”

“No.”

Richie watches him. “Really?”

“Watch the movie.”

Richie doesn’t watch the movie. Or, at least, he only half-watches the movie, because Eddie can feel his eyes on him again and again, like he’s checking that Eddie’s still there, still next to him, still curled up into an awkward, uncomfortable ball. Eddie wants to tell him to stop, but that’s only inviting Richie to say something awful and embarrassing, and Eddie would rather die on this couch than let that happen.

As soon as the credits begin to roll, Eddie excuses himself and goes to the bathroom once more. He barely remembers Mike being next to him, too; all he can feel is the remnants of Richie’s body heat radiating against him. His heart is beating too fast, and all he can think about is the way he’d wanted to sink into Richie’s side for the whole movie. He stares at himself in the mirror, a terrible realization beginning to crystallize in his head.

 

                                                                                

Okay, so _maybe_ he likes Richie.

For whatever insane, horrible, _ridiculous_ reason, Eddie likes someone whose nickname is _Trashmouth._

He refuses to call it a crush – it’s _not_ a crush. It’s temporary insanity, and Eddie’s determined to cure it, however he can.

But if he’s being honest, it’s really not that different, living in a world where he knows he likes Richie Tozier. He still hates it every time Richie calls him “Eds,” and he still feels like he needs to fix Richie’s hair every time he sees him. He still gets mad when Richie tries to crack a joke about his mother, and when he’s late picking him up for school in the mornings. The reality is, nothing’s changed – except Eddie.

He’s more jittery now, very much more aware of all the things that make Richie _Richie._ Like his laughter, or his normal speaking voice, which is simultaneously soft and scratchy. Or the awkward jut of his Adam’s apple, or the fact that he looks like a living, breathing cartoon character. Or the fact that he makes Eddie laugh. Or the fact that he’s _beautiful_ , which – when did _that_ happen?

He wonders, briefly, while he’s lying awake at night, whether Richie likes him, too, and all of the nonsense that’s gone on is Richie’s way of trying to clue Eddie in. Eddie thinks about the movie at Mike’s, and the look on Richie’s face that had said, _Check mate, motherfucker_ , as Eddie had squirmed under his arm. He also thinks about the night of Bill’s going away party, the way Richie had taken care of him despite Eddie’s freak-out earlier that day.

He wonders, briefly, if the whole Rebecca thing had been engineered to get a reaction from Eddie. If Richie somehow convinced Rebecca to let Eddie think they’d done something in the middle of their tutoring session.

Eddie clenches his fists. _The rat bastard!_

 

 

He wants to do something about it, but every time he sees Richie, his heart starts to pound and he gets kind of sweaty and all of the plans he comes up with late at night fly out of his head, suddenly useless. It’s so embarrassing, even though Eddie’s the only one who’s even aware of the stuff that’s going on in his idiot brain. So when he clams up at school when Richie offers to walk him to Biology after lunch, he’s the only one who knows he’d meant to ask Richie if he had time to talk about something later that afternoon.

Rebecca sees Richie deposit Eddie at the door to the classroom, and she waves at them, much to Eddie’s mortification. Even worse, Richie waves back.

She thinks they should get together and date. Eddie tells her she’s crazy, but she just looks at him, chewing on the end of her pencil like she knows better.

“It’d be totally cute,” she says.

“I can’t believe I’m even talking to you about this,” Eddie says.

“Me neither, to be honest,” she says. “I thought you hated me.”

“I didn’t.” Eddie’s not going to admit that he kind of _did._ She’s been growing on him a lot, actually.

“Yeah, right. You totally thought I’d been making out with Richie for some reason. Which, knowing Richie, he probably made you think on purpose.”

“You’re probably not wrong.”

She laughs, almost giggling. “I like how you don’t even deny that you like him anymore.”

“Rebecca,” Eddie says. “We’re long past that.”

 

 

That afternoon, they’re doing homework in Eddie’s room when Richie asks, “Since when are you and Rebecca such good friends?”

Eddie shrugs. “Since we started sharing a lab table in Biology? I don’t know.” He squints at Richie. “Why? Are you jealous?”

Richie laughs. “What, like you and Rebecca would be a thing? Yeah, I’m _so_ jealous.”

Eddie chucks a wad of paper at him. “Asshole.”

Richie grabs the paper from where it landed just behind him and tosses it back at Eddie. “Are you trying to make me jealous? Replacing me with Rebecca?”

“No,” Eddie says. He looks down at his hands in his lap. “I’d never replace you.”

Richie’s quiet for a moment. “Well. Thanks.”

“I mean – ” Eddie stops himself from saying something gross, like _I’d never_ want _to replace you._ Instead, he clears his throat and says, “It’s not like I could replace you even if I wanted to. You’re – ”

“Irreplaceable?”

Eddie smiles, and he shrugs. “I was going to say ‘kind of like cockroaches,’ but if you want to be irreplaceable, I guess I can let that happen.”

Richie’s grinning now. “Cockroaches? Seriously?” He gets up from his spot on the floor and walks up to Eddie at his desk. “ _Cockroaches_?” He cages Eddie in, placing a hand on either side of him on his desk; they’re close enough to kiss. “ _COCKROACHES?”_

“Richie!” Eddie laughs, breathless, his heart hammering against his rib cage. “Get off of me!”

“Sorry, Spaghetti!” Richie holds his gaze, and behind his glasses, his eyes are huge, and so, so brown. “I’m punishing you.”

“Can – can you please do something different?”

“Why?” Richie starts to lean in closer. He crosses his eyes, sticks his tongue out so it’s uncomfortably close to Eddie’s face. “Is this bothering you?”

“It’s _weird_.”

Richie’s smile disappears. “Is it?”

Eddie swallows. “Yeah.”

Richie looks at him, and for a moment, it’s like time stops. Eddie can’t breathe, and it doesn’t seem like Richie’s breathing, either.

Richie’s eyes flick down, landing on Eddie’s lips.

A moment passes, and it feels like an eternity.

And then he’s kissing Eddie.

It’s not a lot – a press of his lips against Eddie’s. The heat of his face. The feeling of his breath leaving his nose and hitting Eddie’s skin. Eddie doesn’t know what to do; he’s frozen, and Richie’s lips move, just a little, pressing into Eddie’s once again. His head is screaming with white noise, his heart is in his throat, and, before he totally loses his mind, Eddie presses forward, just a little.

Richie breaks off, stepping back, and suddenly, it’s like the God hit the _Play_ button, and everything’s happening at normal speed again.

Richie coughs into his fist. His face is red, and he won’t look Eddie in the eye.

“So, uh.” He scratches the back of his neck, takes in the mess of papers he’d left on the floor. “I should probably go. Your mom probably wants me to leave before you guys have dinner…”

“It’s four-thirty,” Eddie says.

“Yeah, well…” Richie’s manically picking up his stuff and shoving it into his backpack. “I don’t want to impose.”

Eddie stands up. “Since when have you cared about that?”

“I’ve got stuff to do, Eds!” Richie says. “Cigarettes to smoke! Magazines to jack off to!”

“Why did you kiss me?”

Richie stops, spluttering. “I – I don’t know!”

Eddie takes a step closer to him. “Why’d you kiss me, Richie?”

“Just _drop it_ , Eds – ”

“Why?”

Richie picks up his backpack, slings it over one of his shoulders. “I don’t _know_ , Eds, okay? I’m _sorry._ I’ll never do it again – ”

“Oh, fuck off, Rich,” Eddie says.

“That’s what I’m trying to do!”

“Fine,” Eddie says. He goes back to his desk, sits down, and wills his tear ducts to fucking _stop._ “Fine!”

“What the fuck are you so worked up about?”

Eddie whirls on him. “You’re seriously asking me that? Like – you – you just _kissed_ me! What the fuck! And you’re just going to _leave_ without saying anything about it – like, _okay,_ I guess – ”

“It was a joke!”

Eddie gapes at him. His brain has gone blank again. “A – a joke?”

Richie shrugs, weirdly morose. “Yeah. Like, ‘Ha ha, Richie kissed Eddie.’ You know…”

“I don’t.”

He sighs, looks down at his feet, twists his mouth in consideration of something. “Well. I gotta go.”

Eddie sinks back into his chair. “Okay.”

“Are you…” Richie glances up at him. “Are you okay?”

Eddie wants to cry. “I’m fine.”

“You sure? Look, I’m sor– ”

“Just go, Richie, okay?

“I didn’t mean – ”

“Just go!”

Richie flinches, but he starts to move toward the door. “Okay, okay.”

He leaves, and Eddie doesn’t follow him to the door, like he normally does. Instead, he waits for the sound of the door closing downstairs, and then he flings himself onto his bed, the tears already flowing, hating himself for how much a stupid kiss can shatter his composure.

It had been his first kiss, and it had only been a joke.

_Great._

 

 

Eddie wants to try to Ferris Bueller himself out of school the next day, but he knows his mother would only take him to the hospital and have the doctors perform every possible test on him, and they wouldn’t leave until she forced _some_ diagnosis out of them. Then he’d be stuck in mandatory bedrest for a few days, barely allowed to call any of his friends to let them know he’s home sick.

So, he goes to school.

Usually, Richie picks him up in his car, but today, Eddie takes his bike. He has to leave earlier than normal to make up for the difference in speed, so it’s not until he’s almost made it to school that Richie catches up to him.

“Hey!” He’s yelling out of one of his windows, driving about fifteen miles an hour and pissing off everyone behind him. “Eds! What are you doing!”

“Going to school!” Eddie shouts back. He refuses to look at Richie, keeping his gaze focused on the sidewalk in front of him.

“Why?”

Someone honks at Richie, and Eddie grits his teeth. “Just go to school, Rich!”

“Eds, come on!”

Eddie stops his bike, and Richie almost stops his car to yell something else, but there’s another honk, and someone swerves into the other lane to get around Richie, their middle finger raised high and angry out the driver’s side window. As Richie speeds up, yelling something about people in this town not understanding friendship, Eddie relaxes.

Since he doesn’t have any classes with Richie this year, Eddie normally doesn’t see him again until lunch, unless Richie finds him in the hallway between periods to dish on something crazy that had happened in his last class. Today, Eddie eats his lunch in the library, which technically isn’t allowed, but he sits in the back and hides behind a lamp to shove the bulk of his turkey sandwich into his mouth. For some reason, he’d imagined that this would be a much more peaceful alternative to the loud and chaotic cafeteria, but instead, it’s just depressing as Eddie watches the kids who are even _more_ Loser-y than Eddie and his friends work on a puzzle with the school librarian. Is this his future? Sequestering himself away from everyone and becoming friends with the librarian? That thought makes a shudder of horror go down his spine.

He almost – _almost_ – makes it to Biology without seeing Richie. He’s just a few yards shy of the door when he hears a desperate-sounding “Eds!” further down the hall, and then he sees Richie jumping around behind a very irritated-looking Stan, his arm waving over his head to get Eddie’s attention. Panicked, Eddie half-walks, half-jogs to his classroom, and he’s crash-landing into his seat next to Rebecca when Richie slides into the doorway, out of breath, a slightly crazy look in his eye as he scans the room for Eddie. Just as Eddie’s considering ducking down beneath the desk to hide, he spots him, and he points a rather accusatory finger at him. “Hey!”

“Mr. Tozier!” Mr. Herrin, Eddie’s biology teacher, glares at Richie from behind his desk. “Stop shouting things in my doorway. This is the third time this _month_.”

Richie looks at him, then back at Eddie, then back at him, his mouth opening and closing helplessly. “I just – Eddie – he – ”

“The bell’s ringing in less than two minutes,” Mr. Herrin says. “You can talk to Mr. Kaspbrack later. You should be going, unless you don’t mind adding another tardy to what I assume is an already impressive collection.”

Richie scoffs. “Mr. Herrin, I don’t _actually_ have _that_ many tardies to my name – ”

“Richie, please get out of my classroom.”

He shoots a beseeching look Eddie’s way, but Eddie just fiddles with his pencil case, his face on fire as everyone in the classroom watches the drama. _They all know_ , a voice in his brain says. _They can tell. It’s obvious._

The one-minute warning bell rings. “ _Richie_ ,” Mr. Herrin says.

“Okay, okay!” Richie throws up his hands in exasperation. “Sheesh.”

After he slouches away, Mr. Herrin taps the pile of graded tests he’s holding against the top of his desk and says to Eddie, “Your friend is a nuisance.”

Sheepishly, Eddie says, “I know.” He can feel the eyes of everyone else prickle on the back of his neck, but he keeps his gaze trained on his open notebook.

Mr. Herrin begins handing back tests then, and as he starts wandering around the room, Rebecca turns to Eddie. “What was that all about?”

Eddie shakes his head. He’s so weary of all this already. “I’ll tell you later, okay?”

She looks at him, sizes him up. For a second, Eddie thinks that whatever she does after she graduates, it’s going to be amazing. “Later. You’re promising.”

Eddie smiles a little. “I’m promising.”

 

 

She offers to drive Eddie home, and Eddie can’t help but admire the pure cosmic irony of the expression of utter betrayal on Richie’s face when he spots them walking to her Camry together after school gets out.

“Hey!”

Eddie hurries Rebecca along as Richie starts power walking in their direction. “Come on, _please_.”

Rebecca’s grinning. “I love how entangled I’ve become between the two of you.”

Eddie rolls his eyes. “You’re enjoying this way too much.”

They make it to her car before Richie, and Eddie slams his lock down as soon as he closes the door behind him. Richie smacks a palm onto the window, his eyes wild behind his glasses.

“Eddie! Come on!”

“Get your dirty hands off my car!” Rebecca shouts.

“I got you a fucking fantastic SAT score, you ungrateful girl!”

Rebecca starts her car. “Not Ivy League fantastic like you promised!”

Eddie grips his backpack to his chest as she pulls out of her spot, paralyzed as Richie yells something else at him, guilt eating at his stomach as Rebecca drives off, leaving Richie looking utterly forlorn.

They go to McDonald’s. Mostly because Rebecca’s hungry, but Eddie doesn’t mind, ordering himself a milkshake and sitting down to collect himself while she waits for her food. He hasn’t decided just how much he wants to tell her. She hadn’t needled him about anything in the car; much to his surprise, she’d just turned on the car’s cassette player, and The Cranberries had played the whole way. Part of Eddie feels like he should be waiting to talk to Bill, or Bev – even Stan, or Ben – never in a million years would Eddie have thought he’d be talking about relationship stuff with _Rebecca Lehrman_ , of all people.

He resolves to give her nothing but the bare bones – he won’t mention the fact that he’s barely able to sleep some nights, because he can’t stop thinking about how _stupid_ it is to be in love with his gross best friend, or the fact that every five minutes he keeps catching himself remembering the way Richie’s lips had felt against his own – but as soon as she sits down he blurts out, “Richie kissed me,” and her eyes bug out of her head as she tries to finish chewing her McNuggets so she can respond.

“I _knew it_ ,” she says eventually. “I knew it!”

Eddie tries to shush her. “Please! We’re in public!”

“So…” She takes a sip of her soda. She’s smiling, trying not to grin. “Was it… you know… great?”

Eddie makes a face, shrugging. “I don’t know. There wasn’t much to it.”

“Then why are you not talking to him?” she asks.

“Because he said it was a joke!” Eddie half-hisses, half-cries. “I was like, ‘Why’d you kiss me,’ and he was just like, ‘Sorry! I was joking!’”

Rebecca shakes her head. “That’s bullshit. Richie totally likes you.”

Eddie chokes on a French fry. “ _What?_ ”

“What, like you didn’t know?”

Dimly, Eddie remembers Stan saying something similar through a mouthful of sandwich on a bench in front of the Paul Bunyan statue. “But – but then – why would he say it’s a joke?”

“Because he’s five years old on the inside, probably,” Rebecca says. Then she shrugs. “I mean, I don’t know. One time, over the summer, we were doing math problems and he suddenly blurted out that he had a ‘big, fat crush’ on you – those were his words – and then he asked me to pretend we’d kissed, or something, in front of you. Which I thought was weird, but I _did_ score way higher on my math section thanks to him, so…” She shrugs again. “It was kinda worth it, I guess.”

Eddie’s spluttering. “You – you mean – you never – ”

“Look, I’m sorry,” Rebecca says. “I didn’t know it would upset you so much. And I’ve really enjoyed being your lab partner – ”

Eddie waves her words away. “No, it’s not – I’m not mad at _you._ I just… don’t get Richie, like, at all.”

She chuckles. “Well, if _you_ don’t get Richie, no one ever will.”

 

 

She offers to take him to school the next day, too, since Eddie had left his bike on the bike racks. Fortunately, Richie doesn’t also roll up to Eddie’s house as Rebecca picks him up – “Who’s that?” his mom had asked from her position peeking through the blinds in the dining room. “Just a friend from class,” Eddie said, hurrying to get past her – but when Eddie’s exchanging books between his backpack and his locker, Richie slaps a hand onto the locker next door and nearly gives Eddie a heart attack in the process.

“What’s up?” he asks.

“None of your business,” Eddie says.

“None o’ my _business_?” Richie asks, sounding something like a gangster. “Look here, chump – ”

Eddie turns to him as he slams his locker shut. “Just cut it out, Rich. I’m not laughing.”

Richie’s face freezes. “Eds, just tell me what’s wrong – ”

“Nothing’s wrong!” Eddie insists. “Just leave me alone. And for the love of God, _stop_ calling me ‘Eds.’”

“I can’t fix it if I don’t know – ”

“Then don’t!” Eddie snaps. “I don’t care!”

“Yes you do!” Richie insists.

Eddie forces himself past Richie in the direction of his English class. “I don’t have time for this.”

“When _will_ you?” Richie asks.

“When you stop acting like a fucking clown!”

Richie splutters incredulously. “Why am I a _clown_?”

“Since apparently everything’s a joke to you!”

Richie stops in his tracks. Eddie keeps walking, though, and storms away, pissed that he’d let slip what was actually bothering him. When he gets to English, he asks for a hall pass to go to the bathroom as class begins, and he locks himself up in one of the stalls. His heart’s pounding like crazy, and he feels a little dizzy, and all he can think about is the look on Richie’s face when Eddie had blown up at him, that look of dawning realization that made Eddie _hope._ He tries to squash it, because no matter what Rebecca says about a big, fat crush, Eddie’s idiot brain can only replay Richie saying, “It was a joke!” over, and over, and over again, a never-ending playback loop – _It was a joke._

 _Fucking asshole,_ Eddie thinks, angrily wiping a stray tear from his eye.

 

 

It’s not really that Eddie thinks Richie doesn’t also have feelings for him. The look on his face before he’d kissed Eddie hadn’t been that of a boy about to pull a joke on his best friend. What pissed Eddie off so much was the fact that he won’t own up to it, that he’s hiding behind the pretense of a joke instead of simply admitting the truth about his big, fat, ugly crush. 

What Eddie really wants to do, is punch him for being so fucking _stupid._

Not that he’ll start talking to him again any time soon, though. Eddie’s determined to ride this out until the end. Either Richie apologizes, and kisses Eddie again, or Eddie just does his best to finish high school and escape to a big city, like New York, or Boston. Or Albany.

The only drawback to Eddie’s resolve, though, is the toll it’s taking on their friends. Eddie’s continued to hide in the library during lunch – Rebecca invited him to join her at her lunch table, but Eddie’s petrified at the thought of trying to make small talk with her friends, so he’d politely declined. Then, two days after the kiss and still with no apology from Richie, Stan finds Eddie in the library, a deeply disapproving look on his face.

“ _This_ is where you’ve been going this whole time?” he asks.

Eddie chokes on his carrot sticks.

Stan sits down across from him. He looks immensely irritated, almost furious. “Seriously, Eds? Ben and I have been worried about you, and you’ve just been here, eating behind a lamp?”

“Shut up,” Eddie says. “Mrs. Schilling hasn’t noticed me yet. She thinks I’m just studying, or something. And please don’t start calling me ‘Eds,’ too. Why are you even here, anyway?”

Stan gives his eyes a slight roll and holds up a book. “Returning this. What did Richie do this time?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

The anger melts from Stan’s face, and he presses his lips together, taking in Eddie’s dejected state. “Okay,” he says. He shifts a little, like he’s not sure how to proceed anymore. “Well. If you ever do, you know, you can…” He shrugs. “I know I’m not Bill, but… I can listen.”

“Thanks,” Eddie says. He gives Stan a smile. “You’re a good friend.”

Stan scoffs. “I’m, like, you’re best friend.”

Eddie frowns. “What about Bill?”

“‘Best Friend’ is a tier, not a title,” Stan says. “Jesus.”

Eddie lets out a chuckle. “Isn’t it weird, taking in vain the name of a guy you technically don’t believe in?”

“Maybe,” Stan says. “But it expresses the right emotion.”

 

 

He stays in his room after school that day, working on homework and flipping through old comic books until dinner, when he makes an appearance downstairs. Then he’s escaping back upstairs as soon as he’s done with the dishes, firing off an excuse about homework as his mother shouts after him to see if he wants to watch her stories with her. Part of him feels bad, hiding away like he is, but the rest of him would really prefer to sulk in private. Stan might’ve cheered him up a little in the library earlier, but once that was over, the reality of Eddie’s situation had returned, no less miserable than before.

He reads some more comic books, and when he gets tired of that, he plays a mixtape Richie had made for him for his birthday back in January. It’s a mixture of stupid shit, like that “I’m Too Sexy” song, stuff Richie knows Eddie likes, like ABBA and Wham, and a few songs Richie likes, that he wanted to share with Eddie – stuff by The Smashing Pumpkins and a band called Pixies. None of it really goes well together, but the overall effect is kind of soothing, even though every new song reminds Eddie again and again of the fact that Richie had painstakingly created it specifically for _him._ It might be a little masochistic, but it’s also a little comforting, having physical proof that Richie cares, a labor of love.

He thinks about the kiss. He replays it in his head, “Ice Ice Baby” playing from the boom box in the background. Absently, his hand goes to his lips, a ghost of the feeling of Richie’s still there.

Maybe if he kissed someone else, all these thoughts of Richie would disappear and turn into nothing but a _very_ embarrassing memory, never to be mentioned again. He wonders, briefly, if Rebecca would kiss him, if he asked. Surely she’s kissed someone before. She’s so pretty.

Eddie shakes his head. What is he _thinking_? Asking Rebecca to kiss him? What kind of slimeball is he? _Richie?_

Frustrated, he presses his hands against his eyes, wishing he could just melt away and cease to exist.

He’s nearly managed it, he thinks, during a Radiohead song when something hits his window. Eddie jolts up, his heart in his throat, electric fear rippling down his spine.

The window begins to rattle in its frame, and through the blinds, Eddie can see a figure crouched outside, trying to get in. Swallowing in a shriek, memories of lepers, and sewers, and his broken arm bubbling to the surface, Eddie carefully steps closer.

There’s another _whack!_ against the glass, and then a voice.

“Eds! What the fuck! I _told_ you to fix this weeks ago!”

Eddie would almost prefer the demonic clown right now.

He opens the dormer window on the adjacent wall and sticks his head out. “ _What the fuck are you doing?_ ” he hisses.

Richie peeks around from his spot on the roof that hangs over the porch. “Great idea! Move out of the way, and I’ll swing over.”

“No!”

He’s already edging closer, holding on to the wall for support. “I’ll just step from this part of the roof onto the other, and shimmy on in. Easy peasy.”

“Do not fucking do that!”

“It’ll be fine! Just watch.” Holding on to the dormer eaves next to Eddie’s head, he swings his leg over the empty space between the porch’s roof and the rest of the house’s before launching the rest of his body over, too. He grabs the eaves on the other side of the window, and then he’s grinning at Eddie, their faces only a few inches apart.

“You’re suicidal!”

“I’m acrobatic, is what I am. Now move so I can come in.”

Eddie suddenly remembers that he’s currently holding a grudge against Richie. He stays where he is and crosses his arms. “Why should I?”

“Because! It’s cold out here!”

“And you’ll what? Kiss me again as a joke?”

Richie throws his head back and groans. “I’m sorry about that! It just came out of me because I’m a fucking idiot!”

“Yeah, well, you are,” Eddie says.

Richie pouts and bats his eyes behind his glasses. “Please let me in?” When Eddie hesitates, he cries, “I apologized!”

“I know! I’m just thinking about it.”

“I’m out here,” Richie says, gesturing wildly, “risking my life to make a big romantic – ”

Suddenly, he’s losing his balance, his arm flailing out to try to regain it.

“Richie!”

Eddie launches himself towards the window and grabs him by the jacket. He ends up hugging Richie close, and they stay there for a moment, catching their breath. Eddie can feel Richie’s heart pounding though his clothes. Or maybe that’s Eddie’s own heart, bursting with a rush of adrenaline.

“Whoa,” Richie breathes. “You saved me, Eds.”

Eddie leans back, but doesn’t let go. “Yeah, just… watch your step, okay?”

He helps Richie through. Then, as soon as Richie’s safely inside, Eddie hits him, as hard as he can.

“OW!”

“Don’t fucking do that – ” he whacks him again, “ – ever – ” and once more, for good measure, “ – again!”

“Fuck! Okay! Stop!” Richie’s holding his hands up in defense, even though he easily could’ve neutralized Eddie in some way with his height advantage. “Jaysus.”

“Do you know what might’ve happened if you fell?” Eddie hisses. “You – you could’ve broken something! Or – or knocked yourself unconscious – or even – you could’ve _died_ – Why are you smiling?”

“You were worried about my safety,” Richie says. “You _do_ still care.”

“Shut up,” Eddie says. “And hold on.”

Motioning for Richie to stay put, Eddie sneaks down the stairs to peek into the living room. “Ma?” he says.

“Yes, Eddie-bear?”

Eddie cringes at the term of endearment. “I’m feeling pretty worn out, so I’m gonna just go ahead and go to bed, I think.”

Her hands are on the arms of the chair, getting ready to leap into action, if she needs to. “Is everything okay? Are you feeling ill? What was all that noise?”

“No, no. I just had a test today,” he lies. “It wore me out a little, I think.” He shrugs. “You know. Math.”

“Okay,” she says, relaxing back into her chair. “Get some rest. I’ll be taking your temperature in the morning, to make sure nothing serious is happening.”

“Okay, Ma.” Eddie starts to back away. “Goodnight.”

“Goodnight, sweetie.”

He locks the door when he returns. Before turning back around, he takes a deep breath. Then, he  asks, point blank, “Do you like me?”

For the first time in a very long time, Richie looks afraid. “What?”

Eddie ignores his nerves, ignores the way the expression on Richie’s face makes him feel afraid, too. “Do you like me?” he asks again.

Richie shakes his head, backs up a little, away from Eddie. “Why – do you?”

“I asked first!”

“That’s not a no.”

Eddie reaches behind him for the door knob; he holds onto it desperately. “You – you haven’t said no, either.”

Richie groans and scrubs at his face with his hands. “Fuck, we’re not very good at this, are we?” he asks.

Eddie wants to bolt downstairs, away from this, away from the suddenly very real possibility that Richie could open him up, completely, and see all of his secrets. Eddie doesn’t think he can handle that.

Richie holds his arms out for a grand, helpless shrug. “What do you want me to say? That I paid Rebecca off with a better SAT score so she would pretend we’d made out? ‘Cause I did.”

“I know,” Eddie says.

Richie gapes. “What!”

Eddie’s grip on the doorknob tightens. “She told me.”

“And to think I trusted her!” Richie says, but his attempt at humor sounds forced, hysterical, even.

“It was right after – after you kissed me,” Eddie says. “The first time. And you said it was a joke.”

Richie storms over to him, looks like he’s about to take Eddie up in his arms and then decides against it. Instead, he hugs himself awkwardly, looking down at their feet, ashamed. “I was – that was total trash, saying it was a joke. I – ” He swallows, and his eyes flick up to meet Eddie’s. “I was scared, to be honest.”

Eddie scoffs. “Scared of what? That I’d criticize your technique?”

“That you’d hate it!” Richie snaps. He starts pacing again. “And that you’d push me away, and call me gross, and disgusting, and you’d say something about how I have a Trashmouth full of germs, I don’t know!”

Eddie’s stomach twists; he feels sick. “I wouldn’t have said any of that!”

Richie laughs humorlessly. “Well, you could’ve fooled me.”

Eddie steps over to him, leaving the safety of the door. “I’m sorry, if I made you think I hated you – I – I really don’t – ”

“It’s okay.” Richie catches him at the elbows, stopping his frenetic motions. “When you started to kiss back, I think that really scared me, too. But, like, for the total opposite reason.”

“Wait.” Eddie squints at him. “You were scared I’d call you gross, and say that I hate you, but you were also scared for the opposite reason? What the fuck?”

“It’s not like it makes sense!”

“Still!”

“I just – ” Richie’s looking around the room over Eddie’s head, avoiding what’s quickly turning into a glare. “I totally expected you to hate it, and then you didn’t, and I didn’t really have a plan for that. I – I panicked.”

“Well.” Eddie swallows, realizing what he’s going to say only a second before it comes out of his mouth. “Kiss me again, then.”

Richie looks at him, a deer caught in the headlights. “What?”

“Kiss me again.”

“Eds…”

Eddie moves closer, and suddenly, he’s very aware of just how much _taller_ Richie’s become since they were kids. “Come on.”

Richie stares down at him stupidly. “You sure?”

Eddie fists a hand into the hem of Richie’s shirt, holding on for dear life. “Richie,” he says. “Seriously.”

“Don’t go falling in love with me after this now, you hear?”

Eddie lets out a huff of irritation before pulling Richie down to his level and pressing their lips together himself. Over the sound of the blood thundering in his ears, he hears the little gasp that escapes Richie’s mouth when their lips meet.

He wishes he could be cool about this, that he could fool Richie into thinking he has some kind of idea of how this is supposed to go. But it’s only his second kiss ever, and he has no idea what he’s doing. Something’s coiling low and hot in his belly, and he feels so, _so_ flustered as Richie starts to move his lips, parting them ever so slightly against Eddie’s.

Eddie jumps involuntarily when he feels Richie’s tongue on his lips.

“Sorry,” Richie murmurs.

Eddie tries to remember how to breathe. “No, it’s okay.”

“Are you… was that good?”

He blinks at him, a little dazed. “Yeah.”

Richie smiles, and Eddie smiles, too, giddy out of his mind. They both start to laugh.

“Should we… should we move?” Richie says, still laughing. “Stop standing in the middle of the room?”

Eddie nods, and Richie takes his hand and pulls him toward his bed. They lie down, side by side, facing each other. Eddie reaches out and takes Richie’s glasses off, setting them down on his bedside table.

“Can you see me?” he asks, lying back down.

“Not really.”

They laugh some more. Richie’s still smiling, but it’s not the same shit-eating smile he usually wears; it’s warm, and tender, and without his glasses on, Eddie can see everything in his eyes, the softness, the affection, the fear of sudden rejection Eddie knows is reflected in his own eyes. It’s terrifying, and Eddie feels like he might actually throw up, which would _seriously_ ruin the moment.

Yet his heart also feels like it’s soaring as Richie’s hand moves to cup Eddie’s cheek, and pull him closer. Then they’re kissing, again, and again, and again. Eddie clutches Richie’s shirt in his fist and holds on tight, feeling like he’ll float away, if he ever lets go. Richie’s fingers move over the short strands of Eddie’s hair, and, carefully, Richie opens his mouth a little, touches Eddie’s with the tip of his tongue, and, carefully, hesitantly, Eddie slowly opens up, too.

They’re kissing – _properly_ kissing, like people do in the movies. Richie’s close, so close, a hand on Eddie’s hip, Eddie’s arms around his neck, the two of them pulling each other closer until their lying chest to chest. Eddie feels like he’s melting into Richie, into the bed, and he can’t believe he waited this long to let this happen. They could have been doing this so much _sooner_ if he had just pulled his head out of his own ass a few months ago. A moan slides out of his mouth against his will, and he lets Richie roll on top of him, pin him down onto his bed, and then their hips are touching, and Eddie can feel himself getting hard –

“Oh,” Richie breathes, bumping up against the sudden lump in Eddie’s pants. “Hello, there.”

“Don’t say that!” Eddie’s face is on fire, and he rolls out from underneath Richie, curling in on himself to hide the stupid, embarrassing, traitorous boner. “ _God_.”

Richie’s laughing. “Eds, do I have to be the one to tell you it’s all perfectly natural?”

Eddie tries to push him away, but Richie comes in closer, almost spooning him. “Get off of me,” he says weakly.

“So it felt good, huh?”

Eddie lets out something that’s half-sob, half-laugh. “Stop.”

Richie hugs him closer. “We don’t have to do anything else,” he says, and Eddie manages to turn around in his arms to face him. With his glasses off, and his lips red and messy-looking from all the kissing, Richie really looks ridiculous. And beautiful.

Eddie says, “You know, I don’t think I’d _mind_. Just… don’t be so fucking embarrassing about it.”

Richie snorts. “Sorry.”

Eddie resists the temptation to tease Richie for actually apologizing for saying something stupid. Instead, he presses himself closer.

“ _Oh_.”

“Don’t,” Eddie warns.

“I _wasn’t_.”

He’s aware that Richie is hard now, too, and he’s no longer sure of what to do. But there’s no turning back.

He kisses him, and as one hand goes to fondle the mess of curls at the back of his head, the other goes to fondle his junk. It makes Richie gasp a little. That spurs Eddie on, and, boldly going where no good Methodist boy has ever gone before, he starts to unbutton his pants, sliding his hand into the hot space inside Richie’s jeans.

“Holy Toledo,” he breathes.

Eddie tightens his grip. “Shut up.”

They go back to kissing. Richie starts scrabbling at the fly of Eddie’s pants, and Eddie’s mind goes utterly blank once his hand finds the object of its search. It isn’t long before the two of them dissolve into a frenzy of sloppy kisses, and moving hands, and jerking hips. Eddie’s entire body is a live wire, lighting up everywhere Richie touches him; he feels stretched out, a rubber band about to snap and, soon enough, they’re both blowing their loads all over themselves.

“Mama _Mia_!”

Eddie whacks him. It’s astonishing – mind-boggling, really, just how little time it takes for Richie to make Eddie furious after doing something like – like _that_.

Richie pulls him in for a kiss, and, just like that, Eddie’s irritation dissipates. He hates that Richie is suddenly capable of doing this – though, if Eddie were to think about it long enough, he’d realize Richie’s always been able to do this, that he’s always known how to get through the chinks in Eddie’s armor. That he’s always known Eddie better than Eddie knows himself.

The spell is broken when Eddie’s doorknob starts jiggling, and his mother’s voice comes from the other side, “Eddie-bear? Why is your door locked? Is everything okay?”

Without even thinking about it, Eddie’s shoving Richie into the crevice between his bed and the wall as he shoots up, his mind reeling over how he can hide the jizz on his shirt and button his pants back up at the same time within the few seconds it takes him to cross the room.

“I’m coming!” he says, and he grimaces, hard, as Richie stifles a shout behind the bed.

“Eddie?” Her voice is climbing in pitch, like it does when they’re in the car when they go to the hospital and she’s trying to tell him why they can’t just wait to make a normal doctor’s appointment. “Eddie, is something wrong? Open the door, right now!”

“Everything’s fine!” Eddie whips the door open. He prays that he looks normal. “I was just changing. For bed.”

“Why are you still up? I thought you’d gone to bed, but I heard noises coming from your room.”

 _Had_ they made noise? Eddie’s suddenly sweaty. “No, I just – Richie gave me a comedy cassette tape a few days ago, and I thought I’d listen to it as I fall asleep. Only it turned out to actually be pretty funny.”

He hears a muffled snort behind him, but he retains his composure as his mother considers the excuse. “Well, go to bed soon, okay?” she says. “It’s getting late as it is.”

“Okay.” He gives her a quick kiss on the cheek. “Sorry about all the noise.”

“You know I need my time to wind down in the living room.”

“I know,” he says. “Sorry.”

“Have you brushed your teeth yet?”

Eddie _really_ wants this to end so she doesn’t have time to spy the stain he’s trying to cover with his arms held awkwardly in front of him. “No…”

“I don’t want you going to bed with a mouth full of cavity-causing bacteria.”

“ _Okay._ ” He doesn’t like how impatient he sounds, but he can hear Richie rustling behind him, and he can only hope he’ll stay down for as long as he needs to. “Goodnight.”

“Make sure you floss.”

“Okay!”

He nearly closes the door in her face, which he’d feel bad about if he didn’t have to hurry over to his bed to shut a laughing Richie up.

“You’re so _loud_!”

Richie grabs his arm and pulls him into the uncomfortably tight crevice, tenderly cupping the back of his head as he kisses him. Eddie makes a noise of surprise, but he melts into it, and, weirdly enough, he kind of enjoys the feeling of Richie’s tongue being in his mouth.

Richie breaks away and quietly asks, “Should I go down there and tell her I know you haven’t flossed yet?”

Eddie pushes himself away and stands up. “Why am I _kissing_ you?”

Richie props his elbow on the side of the bed and holds his chin in his hand. He smiles goofily at Eddie. “Because you like me.”

Eddie ignores the way his heart squeezes at those words. He climbs out onto his bed, a little grateful to have some distance between them so he can _think_.  “So. Do you…” He hesitates, the weight of how much he actually wants Richie to stay pressing down on his chest like an asthma attack. “Were you planning on being here all night? Or…?”

Richie looks at Eddie like he’s just told an especially absurd joke. “Do you want me to?” he asks. “Because I could just walk out your front door eventually. Your mom’s going to sleep now, right? She’ll never hear me with her humidifier on.”

Eddie hates the way his stomach sinks. “Oh. Well, I thought – I mean – Don’t you?”

“Of course I’m staying,” Richie laughs, and Eddie nearly goes limp with relief. He tries to keep sitting up straight, so Richie can’t tell how much he cared. “You think I risked my neck doing roof parkour so I could _leave_ later?”

Eddie shakes his head in disbelief. “You asshole.”

 

 

They take turns using the bathroom to get ready for bed. Eddie lends Richie a pair of pajamas, and when Richie suggests they just sleep naked, Eddie throws them at him, refusing to even dignify such an idea with a verbal response.

It’s a tight fit in Eddie’s twin bed, but if they both lay on their sides, there’s just _that_ much more wiggle room. It’s the first time they’ve shared a bed since they were twelve, when Richie had mentioned something about boners and frightened Eddie into making him sleep on the floor. Now, they’re so much bigger, and Eddie is so aware of Richie’s body in such proximity to his own. He doesn’t think he’ll be able to sleep at all tonight.

“So what do we do, now?” Richie asks, his voice disembodied in the dark.

Eddie shrugs, toying with one of Richie’s hands under the covers. It’s weird, how easy it suddenly is to just _touch_. “I don’t know.”

“Do we… want to tell the others?”

Eddie shrugs again. He tries to imagine telling Stan, or Mike, or any of the others about what’s happened tonight, but he shrinks away from it before the hypothetical words are even out of his hypothetical mouth. “I don’t know,” he says. “Shouldn’t we… can’t we just keep this to ourselves? At least for now?”

There’s a hand on his cheek, and then Richie’s lips pressing a kiss to his forehead. “Sure we can,” he says.

“Thanks,” Eddie murmurs. He wants to melt into the way Richie’s thumb is stroking the apple of his cheek.

“I’ll have to tell your mom, though, you know,” Richie says, and in an instant, Eddie’s blood goes cold.

“ _No._ No way, she can’t – ”

“I have to end things with her,” Richie says, and Eddie can hear the laughter choking up his voice. “So we can properly be together.”

“Beep – ” Eddie kicks him under the covers. “ _Beep_ , Richie!”

Richie only laughs, and Eddie has to attempt to smother him so he doesn’t make too much noise.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So for Research Purposes I made [a lil playlist on Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/user/sami.heffner/playlist/1fz5Ozts36XwgaZYTlae7t) that's more or less what Richie's mixtape would've sounded like :^)

**Author's Note:**

> This is part of an ongoing project I'm working on, so please, PLEASE leave feedback!!! It's so important


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